From Pandora to Gettysburg: The Private Worlds of Rick Carter

Regular collaborator of Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, two-time Oscar winner, a recipient of a BAFTA award and the Special Camerimage Award for a Production Designer with Unique Visual Sensitivity - Rick Carter's achievements are beyond doubt. However, the man in question is characterized by a rather pragmatic approach: “I know that this is supposed to be a master class, but I don't really know what I am a master of" - he said yesterday to the participants of the workshop Designing Worlds, which took place yesterday after the special screening of Forrest Gump.

Rick Carter, photo by Wiola Łabędź
In 1970 Rick Carter took a trip around the world. He came back home after two years, but in reality he never stopped feeling like a traveler - nowadays he simply creates places that other people can visit.

The workshop started with a projection of a fifteen minute documentary Imagining Worlds, Designing Worlds, Building Worlds directed by Allan Holzman, which, according to Rick Carter, shows in a nutshell the evolution of his career and...his hairstyle. Apart from the insight into his rich body of work, the documentary allowed the participants of the workshop to find out that during the production of Jurassic ParkSteven Spielberg would eagerly play with the miniature dinosaurs, while exotic Vietnam, where a part of Forrest Gump takes place, in reality was just around the corner of the family house belonging to the character played by Tom Hanks.

Rick Carter strongly underlined that regardless if he works on recreating worlds that have foundation in reality, like Abraham Lincoln's house, or on creating worlds that exist solely in imagination, he always thinks about one thing: about finding a heart of the movie, not simply copying historical details.

Unlike many production designers he doesn't resist digital revolution. On the contrary, he perceives the consecutive change as yet another element thanks to which his job still brigs him joy after almost forty years: “I know I'm touching into some territory that is very sensitive to cinematographers, but I don't really have something in that fight, that's not my arena. (...) I'm there to provide for the image to be created and to set the stage for hopefully great work. I had a matriarch grandmother who was born in 1882, she lived to be 103 and when I was in my twenties first starting my career, she told me that when she was 18 she can remember being with her sorority sisters in college laughing hysterically at the concept that something heavier then air could fly. The Greek philosophers used to say that the only constant is change. (...) Bound for Glory by Hal Ashby with <b.Haskell Wexler was a transition for me coming off from the sixties and my travel, and I thought I knew what movies were. Than along came Star Wars."

Still from "Avatar"
When asked what his job means to him, he kept insisting that he can only speak about his own experiences. He didn't hand out ready solutions, he didn't give many pieces of advice, but his tips were enthusiastically welcomed by students: “Be on the side of a cinematographer and a director. Give them a place to put the camera and as many elements that you can move out of the way as simply as possible, so there can be a variety of choices if necessary, and make sure that there are places where the cinematographer can put the lights. (...) It's one of the most common mistakes to think that there is something more important that the lighting of the scene. There is nothing more important."

According to the production designer, a compromise doesn't always have to turn out to be something bad, and a smaller budget doesn't always have to prove limiting. Furthermore, sometimes it may actually help in finding a more interesting solution: “In Jurassic Park there is a scene when the cow gets put into the raptors' pit And that was five CG shots, each one costing 50 000 dollars. But we made it look more like a James Bond piranha scene, where it gets put in, you see everything shake around and then up comes the empty harness. What you didn't see, what was implied, actually made it a better scene and saved money."

He often begins to collaborate closely with Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kamiński, as well as with Robert Zemeckis and Don Burgess even before the screenplay is written: “It's a wonderful thing for me to feel like an artist with blank canvas. It's wonderful when at the very beginning the imagery I created makes everybody start to feel, for the first time, like they are creating a movie. That's my most enjoyable moment, to bring something to live when everybody says: I'm seeing the movie. The other important part is being on set the night before, lit and ready to go with unlimited possibilities and the illusion already there. Some people say: and then the barbarians came. But I never look at it like this, when this world is finally captured by a camera it comes to life, it's no longer just a physical place."

Instead of fighting to save his vision at all costs, he prefers to have a dialogue, to think about finding the best possible solution together with a director or a cinematographer: “After all, these are the people that bring my vision to life" - he said to the participants of the workshop in Multikino. “I am a junkie for ideas."

Marta Bałaga
Camerimage